2023-11-02 15:47:40
Since the intensification of the attacks by the State of Israel against Gaza, on October 7, under the justification of reprisals to the action of armed resistance against the occupation, the defense of the Zionist State by broad sectors draws attention, even in Brazil. evangelicals. Why do Christian segments that, from a religious point of view, in theory, share a vision closer to Islam (Islam, unlike Judaism, recognizes and venerates the figure of Jesus Christ as a prophet), align themselves so unconditionally with the State of Israel?
By: Diego Cruz
This is a story that is both ancient and recent. A centuries-old ideological construction that gained strength and a new aspect with the strengthening of the extreme right in recent years. And that “spiritual”, as we will see, has absolutely nothing.
Christianity and Zionism
The identification between Protestantism and what would become Zionism, that is, the idea that the Jewish people should return to historical Palestine, dates back to the first years of the Protestant Reformation. A 16th-century English clergyman, Thomas Brightman, claimed that Jews should “return to Jerusalem again,” since “prophets everywhere confirm it and speak of it.”
Behind this idea there was a peculiar reading of the gospel, specifically of Christian eschatology, which foresaw the return of the Jews to the promised land, the reconstruction of the Temple of Solomon (destroyed by Babylonians and Romans), the preparation of the second coming of Christ and, finally, the conversion of the Jews to Christianity. This doctrine would later be called “dispensationalism.” This is a vision that presupposes the abandonment of the Jewish faith to fulfill the prophecies, what many Jews, not without reason, call anti-Semitism.
This idea became a practical force in the 19th century with the German Pietist Temple movement, which emerged from Lutheranism. Two German clergymen, Christoph Hoffman and Georg David Hardegg, founded the Templer Society in 1861, with the idea of colonizing Palestine through settlements. With the support of the Prussian Court and Anglican theologians from Great Britain, they established the first settlement in Haifa, in 1866, spreading throughout the region. Therefore, long before Theodor Herzl launched Zionism as a political and ideological current at the 1897 congress.
The “Temperators”, who would end up being expelled after the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, saw their methods of installing population settlements in the villages imitated by the first Zionist levies, between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. XX, with strong British support. For England it was strategic to strengthen its position in the region, still under Ottoman rule.
Evidently, the early Zionists were not motivated by this doctrine coming from Protestantism. In fact, if Zionism in the 19th century, as an ideology that advocated the construction of a Jewish nation, was not a majority force among Jews – rivaling those who defended the complete integration of Jews in their respective countries (although maintaining certain traditions and religiosity) –, even among the Zionists, religious Zionism that defended the return to Jerusalem did not predominate. So much so that regions such as Bariloche, in Argentina, or Uganda, in Africa, were being considered.
The choice of Palestine and the construction of the myth of the return of the Jews to the land that had been promised to them had the objective of closing ranks with the States and attracting the sympathy and defense of broad Christian religious sectors around the world. To achieve this, it became essential to consolidate another myth: that today’s Jews descend directly from the Hebrew people of the Old Testament (or the Torah).
A functional myth
There are many studies and debates about the origin of the peoples who call themselves Jews, mainly after the publication of the work of Shlomo Sand, The invention of the Jewish people (2008). The author returns to the studies of Arthur Koestler who, in 1976, published the book The thirteenth tribe, in which he states that the Jews are, in reality, descendants of the tsars, from the Caucasus, converted in the 8th century. This version is accepted by many serious researchers.
The Israeli historian Illan Pappé relativizes this debate, stating that “people have the right to invent themselves, as so many national movements did at the time of their conception.”” but warns that “the problem is exacerbated when the genesis narrative engenders political projects such as genocide, ethnic cleansing, and oppression.”
And that’s exactly what happened. The different segments of Zionism, from the religious to the “left”, converged on that biblical interpretation that the Jews (the current ones) would be the legitimate descendants of the ancient Hebrew people. This historical, moral and ancestral authority would guarantee the justification for occupying Palestine and expelling the “invaders”, in this case, the Palestinians. Although ironically, there are many who claim that current Palestinians, the original people of that land, carry more DNA from the ancient Hebrews than current Jews.
However, for many Zionists, it matters little whether this justification was false or not. Even because it was used by “socialist” Zionists, atheists, etc. The important thing was to colonize Palestine, expel those who lived there and establish a Jewish State. And to this day that myth is used for the growing occupation of Gaza and the West Bank and for the massacres perpetrated by the Zionist State seven decades ago. And mainly to justify the maintenance of Israel as a military enclave, before England, now the United States, in a strategic region.
Israel and the far right
Let’s go back to current evangelicals. What does this tortuous trajectory have to do with the pastor on the corner of a suburban neighborhood who calls his faithful to a “vigil for Israel” at the exact moment when the country launches tons of missiles at the heads of children and babies? in Gaza?
Protestantism had significant growth in Brazil in the last century, mainly through Pentecostal movements, but still in the context of a largely Catholic Brazil. The proliferation of neo-Pentecostal churches, in a context of crisis, abysmal social inequality, and the promises offered by the Theology of Prosperity, has been changing the religious landscape in the country and, soon, evangelicals would surpass Catholics.
There has always been a “natural” association between Protestantism and Jews, but it was essentially symbolic and religious. Jesus is the “Lion of the Tribe of Judah,” the “hope of Israel.” But, there was practically a consensus that “Israel” no longer referred to the ancient Jews, but to the entirety of the faithful. The “law” was replaced by the sacrifice of Jesus at Calvary. Some segments even fall into anti-Semitism, blaming the Jews for “having killed Jesus.”
However, in recent years a profound change has been noted. References to Israel stop being symbolic and become almost literal. Millennialism, although not studied in practically any church, is assimilated uncritically. The churches are becoming “Judaized” and the believers themselves identify as part of the Jewish diaspora. The use of Israeli flags became common, pastors ministering services with kippahs and, the greatest expression of this process, the enormous Temple of Solomon built by the Universal Church in the capital of São Paulo.
This is a movement synchronized with the radicalization of the evangelical public towards the extreme right and, more recently, with Bolsonarism. This is why many find the current hypervaluation of the Old Testament strange. There we have a warrior deity, who mercilessly destroys his enemies, does not accept the worship of any other deity, and imposes himself by force. A narrative that is easier to absorb and mold into a political project of dictatorship and persecution of opponents than would be, for example, a deity that preached love of neighbor, protected prostitutes and said that “it is easier than a camel to pass through the hole of a needle that a rich man enters the kingdom of heaven.”
In this sense, just as Bolsonaro and Trump would be men sent by God to protect traditional moral values (or the much vaunted Judaic-Christian culture), threatened by the advance of the rights of women, blacks and LGBTI+, the State of Israel would be the “anointed” state to stop “Islamic savages” and “terrorism.” A vision that is not only distorted, but also deeply racist and xenophobic.
Added to this are interests that are far from ideology. For some years now, an authentic tourist industry has proliferated in Jerusalem, led by media pastors and companies aimed at the religious public. Ironically, the most pompous ones try to take a trip to the luxurious Dubai, which has as much to do with the Bible as Osasco, here in São Paulo.
Massacre has nothing to do with religion
It is common for pastors and churches to present the issue as a kind of “spiritual battle.” However, what really happens is the action of a State, artificially created by the British Empire and supported today by the United States, which has it as its military enclave. The Palestinians, therefore, are a “problem” to be eliminated. Religious discourse is used cynically for this purpose.
Many workers are evangelical, and we respect their beliefs. However, the fight against the Palestinian genocide is not a fight against religion, but against a project of colonization, ethnic cleansing and genocide in the service of imperialism. So much so that there are evangelicals who take a stand against this, for example, numerous anti-Zionist Jewish groups. We invite our evangelical companions to join us in this fight.
Article published in www.pstu.org.br25/10/2023.-
Translation: Natalia Estrada.
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